Hajós György: Heroes' Square - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)
Hyppodameia. Among the guests were the Centaurs who got drunk and attempted to abduct the bride and the other young women present, but were defeated and routed in a bloody battle by the lapiths. In the back wall of the anterior building is the large entrance gate with a lugged hood moulding. The fresco meant for the large surface above the gate was not. in fact made. To the left and right of the portico are windowless, column-segmented connecting wings uniting the ancient temples, each with six columns, in one large body. The temples have their own gates, but no steps ascend the high subbase. The classical-looking group of single-storey buildings, which are covered with quarrystones, are connected to the multi-storey structure blocking the back that houses the gallery by a wing articulated on its fagade by doric semicolumns. Between these were two well- appointed courtyards, an open-air space appropriate for the display of carved stone ornaments and sculptural fagade decorations. The exhibition wing features a fagade inspired in its shape by the front of palaces built in the Renaissance, that other stylistic ideal of the period. The fagade is set in imitation ashlar, made of mortar. The building turns towards the Zoo with its main front. In its middle section the front presents one with three storeys, whereas the projections appear to have two storeys only, even though several levels are hidden behind them. Above the quadrangular windows of the basement on the ground-floor level are large windows with semi-circular tops that feature male masks in their keystones. In the middle of the front overlooking Dózsa György út is the side-entrance of the museum flanked by two limestone columns; the balcony above this used to belong to an apartment. The exhibition wing is higher than the classical structures nearest the square. The section behind the middle portico rises above, and the ancient shapes of the temples are reconciled to the Renaissance style of the exhibition wing by the gallery between the small pillars. The designers intended to ornament the fagade with polychrome materials, as had been the case with the Exhibition Hall, but there was no money left for this or 48
